The city of St. Paul, Minnesota, will not press charges against anti-ICE protesters who disrupted a worship service at Cities Church after the city determined that the protest was peaceful.

On Jan. 18, a group of anti-ICE protesters disrupted a worship service at Cities Church, a church plant in St. Paul supported by the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Send Network. Videos of the incident show protesters chanting and screaming in the faces of church members as congregants attempted to worship.

Following the incident, Cities Church Lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell told Fox News that “several folks at that moment actually scattered, fearful it was a shooter situation. Children were obviously terrorized. Mothers were terrorized.”

Pam Bondi, who was recently removed from her position as U.S. attorney general by President Donald Trump, led the arrests of 39 people involved in the protests, including independent journalist and former CNN anchor Don Lemon.


Earlier this week, St. Paul City Attorney Irene Kao described videos captured during the protest as peaceful and said nothing unlawful occurred.

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Author and speaker Jackie Hill Perry responded to “the recent conversations around my story and Pride Month,” which she said began when someone on Threads wished her a “Happy Pride Month.” Perry is known for her book, “Gay Girl, Good God,” which tells how God led her to himself and out of acting on her attraction to other women.

“[Y’all] know I don’t respond to everything. There is a time to be silent but there is also a time to speak. Discerning the difference between the two is a function of wisdom,” said Perry in the caption of her video. “A wisdom we all have access to through Christ. To me, this moment feels providential and purposeful. Especially because I’ve been quiet on socials and quite comfortable with it but for such a time as this, I won’t be.”

“When it comes to the recent conversations around my story and Pride month,” she said, “I thought it wise to speak to one singular reality, the GOSPEL. Tell the truth and shame the devil.” Her caption ended quoting ‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬-‭17‬.

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The House passed a measure to provide almost $2 billion in aid to Ukraine and impose new sanctions against Russia Thursday, sending the measure to the Senate behind a 226-to-195 tally -- despite GOP leadership in full opposition to the measure.

Eighteen Republicans voted in favor of the bill -- creating a bipartisan majority -- although Democrats carried most of the water on the vote.

"Today’s bipartisan vote sends a strong message to Ukraine that we support them and a clear message to Putin that we stand against Russian tyranny,” Republican Rep. Michael McCaul said in a statement after the vote.

A vote on the package was forced after a discharge petition amassed 218 signatures, the threshold of support required for lawmakers to circumvent the majority leadership's will and force a floor vote.

“Brett’s murder is the second murder in downtown Indianapolis in less than a week. Just before the Indy 500, Gregory Anderson, a father of five children, was murdered in the downtown bar district in Indianapolis. And then last Sunday, a 16-year-old teenager was murdered in the Northwest Side of Indy.”
Banks also accused Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears of refusing to prosecute violent criminals.
“Ryan Mears is a prosecutor gone rogue. He refuses to keep violent criminals behind bars and is an absolute failure of a prosecutor,” he said.
“If we keep making excuses for why we can’t enforce the law and keep violent criminals in prison, we will never have safe neighborhoods and communities — and innocent people like Brett will continue to pay the price.”
How many more must die before these people wake up!

SPRINGDALE, Utah — Towering 1,500 feet over the floor of Zion National Park, Angels Landing is one of the most recognizable rock formation in the American West. Famous for its steep grades, sheer cliffs and razor thin paths, it draws hundreds of thousands of thrill-seeking hikers each year. Yet, long before it became an internet sensation and arguably the “deadliest hike” in America’s National Park system, it was a summit deemed entirely unreachable by humans.

The trail enjoyed by modern hikers is the result of a century old historical gamble, a wandering Methodist minister, and a pioneering engineer who believed regular people deserved access to the heavens no matter the risk.

A Minister’s Vision and the Birth of a Holy Metaphor​

For thousands of years, the towering vertical walls of Zion Canyon were known as Mukuntuweap—a Southern Paiute word meaning “straight canyon.” It was under this moniker that President William Howard Taft first designated the area as a federally protected National Monument in 1909. However, fearing that American tourists would struggle to pronounce the Indigenous name, the National Park Service officially rebranded the sanctuary as Zion in 1918.

Two years before that name change, a 50-year-old traveling motivational speaker and Methodist minister from Ohio named Frederick Vining Fisher stepped off a stagecoach into the region. Seeking pristine landscapes to anchor his popular illustrated travel lectures, Fisher spent two weeks exploring the canyon floor in October 1916 alongside two local Mormon teenagers who served as his guides.

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New Mexico authorities identified human remains discovered by a hiker as those of a missing Los Alamos National Laboratory employee whose case gained attention due to the publicity surrounding a string of deaths and disappearances of U.S. scientists linked to space, defense and nuclear research.

The New Mexico State Police announced on Saturday that the remains belonged to Melissa Casias, a 53-year-old Taos resident who worked as an administrative assistant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

“Through coordination with the Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI), the individual has been positively identified as a missing person, Melissa Casias,” the police said in a statement.

“The cause and manner of death have not yet been determined. The remains will undergo further anthropological examination by OMI."

A hiker had discovered the human remains, now identified as Casias’, in the McGaffey Ridge area of the Carson National Forest on May 28, according to the report. The New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau was notified about the hiker’s discovery, and investigators also learned that a handgun was found alongside the remains.

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Pray for vocations to the religious life

I have a question that has been on my mind for a long time. As a Christian, I understand that people should not take their own lives. However, I sometimes hear about Christians who are suffering from a serious illness and, from a medical perspective, have already tried every possible treatment and done everything within their power, yet their condition cannot be improved.

In such situations, one option is to allow the body to continue deteriorating, even though the person may continue to suffer physically until the end of life. Another option is for the family to consent to the removal of life support, allowing the person's life to end sooner.

My question is: Would the second option be considered a form of intentionally ending a human life? Is it something that is not pleasing to God? Would it also reflect a lack of faith in God? Yet I have heard of many Christians who have chosen this course of action. How should this be understood from a Christian perspective?

Thank you for your opinion.

President Donald Trump’s top Nevada prosecutor, Sigal Chattah, pushed to launch investigations at the behest of former clients and friends while repeatedly bypassing Justice Department orders recusing her from cases, according to three people with direct knowledge.

Chattah, a former Republican party official who took over the US attorney’s office in Nevada 14 months ago, also opened a probe targeting her past political foe, the three individuals said. It is one of many circumstances in which she’s leveraged her role to advance personal interests.

The first-time prosecutor frequently sought status updates on cases despite warnings that she was disregarding recusals signed by the deputy attorney general’s office in Washington that barred her involvement in matters where she had conflicts of interest, said several individuals.

“It’s charitable to call it chaos,” said Rick Pocker, who was Nevada US attorney under President George H. W. Bush, about Chattah’s leadership. “I don’t think she quite understands how you’re not supposed to use that office for personal or political purposes.”

Chattah is one of several Trump-aligned top federal prosecutors whose appointment as acting US attorney was deemed invalid by a judge, leaving her future in doubt. She remains in charge while the court order disqualifying her is pending appeal.

Previously in Chattah news

How could Donald J Trump even have wartime powers absent our being at war?




What's with the "Freedom 250" sticker in the upper right corner?

Romans 6:1-6,12,16 NKJV


The Wedding Ceremony

Imagine with me for a moment that you have just gotten married to your spouse. This is the moment you had been waiting for, and now you did it. You said your vows, and you signed the contract, and now you are husband and wife, a married couple. But then imagine with me that soon after you decide to take a vacation from your spouse, to go away somewhere else where they cannot see you or what you are up to, where they are not included, and which opens the door wide for you to find someone else.

This is how many people who profess faith in Jesus Christ treat the Lord, who is their spiritual husband (whether they are male or female), for they committed themselves to be his bride. The big difference is that he can and does see what we are doing in secret when no one else is looking. So he does know what we are up to. But they think that just because they prayed the prayer and said the words that they now have what they want, but that they are still free to live however they want, to go where they want to go.

Death to Old Life

But that is not how it works. That is not what a marriage should look like, and it is definitely not what a marriage relationship with Jesus Christ should look like. For God’s grace to us is not carte blanche (absolute freedom) to live however we want now that our sins are forgiven and we believe that heaven is guaranteed us. God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives now and forever (Titus 2:11-14).

So, we are not free to continue in sin. For by faith in Jesus Christ we die to sin that we might no longer live under its control. And this does not mean that we will never sin again (1 John 2:1-2), but that sin should no longer have dominion over us to where it is what we obey, in practice, instead of us obeying our Lord. For by faith in Jesus our former self is put to death with Christ that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we should no longer be slaves to sin but now servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Baptism Into Death

Now, with regard to the verses here speaking of us being baptized into Christ, thus being baptized into Christ’s death, this is clearly speaking of a spiritual baptism which may or may not include water baptism. For in the Scriptures there were people who believed, then were baptized, and those who received the Holy Spirit upon belief, and then were baptized in water. And many people get baptized in water who never, in truth, give their lives over to the Lord Jesus Christ to belong to him and to obey him forever.

But our water baptism serves as an outward sign of an inward faith, if truly we have believed in Jesus with biblical faith which saves. And if we are baptized by dunking in the water, it symbolizes our faith. For biblical faith involves us dying with Christ to sin and being raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but now as servants of righteousness in walks of obedience to our Lord in holy living for the glory of God. And all of this is of God, and not of the flesh, for it to be genuine.

Slaves to What?

And this is what it all comes down to. Are you, in truth, a slave to sin? Or are you a slave to God and to obedience to his commands? You cannot be both at the same time. As followers of Jesus Christ we are no longer to let sin reign (rule) in our mortal bodies, to where we still obey its lusts, in practice. For, if we present ourselves, by our actions, as slaves to sin, that leads to death (eternal separation from God). But if obedience to our Lord is what we obey, in practice, it leads to sanctification and eternal life with God.

For Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

Marriage to Christ
An Original Work / June 4, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

I think maybe a bit like this: remnants of protein from plants in warm water in Africa, two strands of protein that combine and form a bond, the sun is always a "pressing" force, so from there you have the first "will". The will never gets stronger than this first bond unless the one who controls this will allows itself to grow stronger. Plants are life too, they feel their surroundings, so they have a soul too, animals and humans are just more intelligent, they don't necessarily sense more of their surroundings than plants do, but they think more.

Were there two protein bonds that made the first plant too, I don't really know, I would assume so, but maybe rather that there was something before protein. More advanced life requires protein to build a physical body, while plants may have something even simpler,


how does this view fit into the picture of a Creator and the first will?

The St. Paul city attorney says no state charges will be filed against anti-ICE protesters who demonstrated in a St. Paul church earlier this year. The protesters disrupted a Sunday service in January because a church leader there is also a ranking official in a local ICE office.

Of course no charges are filed since the agitators are politically linked with their St. Paul brothers and sisters.

One of the defining attributes of God is that He is immutable, meaning He isn’t subject to change.

We know this through philosophical reasoning because at the foundation of reality there has to be one being who is purely actual without any potency, and we call this being God.

We also know about God’s immutability through the witness of Sacred Scripture:

For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. (Mal 3:6)
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. (Heb 13:8)
Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (Jas 1:17)

Click to expand...

The doctrine of divine immutability is further affirmed in the Church’s liturgical life, such as in the great Hymn of the Incarnation chanted after the Second Antiphon in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom:

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Unprecedented turnout signals heightened priority for pro-life witness in Britain.

A record fourteen Catholic bishops from across Great Britain will attend this year’s March for Life UK in London — double last year’s number — with the Archbishop of Westminster set, for the first time, to take part and celebrate the opening Mass.

The fourteen include the leaders of three of Britain’s principal archdioceses — Archbishop Richard Moth of Westminster, Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, and Archbishop John Wilson of Southwark — as well as other ordinaries with jurisdictions across England, Scotland, and Wales.

“It is hard to think of another event, or cause, that receives this level of support from the hierarchy of the Church,” the March for Life UK organizers said in a June 2 statement. “Their presence demonstrates the primary importance that the Church places on this key and fundamental issue.”

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Monday against the city of Denton and its officials, accusing them of allowing “gender-neutral” changing rooms at a publicly owned swimming pool for an upcoming all-ages LGBT pride event.

The lawsuit filed May 28 in Denton County District Court targets the city’s handling of “Big Gay Swim Day,” the fourth annual swim party hosted by nonprofit organizations PRIDENTON and OUTreach Denton on June 7 at the Quakertown Civic Center Pool. The event, open to all ages with required registration, was advertised with plans for gender-neutral changing rooms before organizers removed that language.

Paxton’s office announced the suit on Monday, stating it aims to prevent “grown men in changing rooms with Texas children and women at events hosted at publicly owned” facilities.

The Texas Women’s Privacy Act, or Senate Bill 8, passed last year, mandates that private spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms in public facilities be segregated by biological sex. SB8 requires political subdivisions, including cities, to take “every reasonable step” to ensure individuals of the opposite sex do not enter spaces designated for the other sex.

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One of my favorite works of art—whether visual, musical, or otherwise—is Mozart’s Requiem. Its beauty reflects something far beyond the mundane, lifting the listener toward unimaginable spiritual heights. When I listen to it, I often experience a mixture of awe and sadness: awe at the God-given genius required to compose such a masterpiece, and sadness for its composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose personal life seems to have lacked the deep piety one might expect from someone used by God in so extraordinary a way.

The awe I experience before works such as the Requiem stands in stark contrast to what I feel when confronted with religious art, architecture, and music shaped by the horizontal vision of progressive Christianity. This vision often reduces Christianity to service of others—especially the poor—and treats that service as the center of the Gospel rather than the fruit of something greater: the worship of God and the salvation of souls.

We can see this emphasis in much contemporary sacred music, particularly the work of Dan Schutte, including Table of Plenty. We can also see it in the church architecture that emerged during the 1970s and 1980s. Both reflect a broader shift in focus—from God to man, from transcendence to utility, and from worship to community. That shift helps explain why I cannot be a progressive Catholic.

The Horizontal Turn​

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One Reason Why I Cannot Be A Progressive Catholic: Beauty

The Church's highest purpose is not to help us feel at home in this world. It is to prepare us for the next. One of the ways she accomplishes that task is through beauty.

www.patheos.com

Please please pray that Jesus Christ's Gospel spreads in Japan in order to save both the victims who are sold in the sex trafficking trade, & those who pay for sex:

The Pope warns against replacing humans with AI, though he seems to use it himself​

Pope leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is very long (at more than 42,000 words, the length of a short novel). It tackles numerous issues, perhaps too many. The pontiff pleads for fact-checked journalism and multilateral diplomacy. He apologises for the papacy’s belated condemnation of slavery. He declares the concept of “just war”, most recently used by J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president, to justify the attack on Iran, “outdated”. The central purpose of the document, however, is to challenge the unregulated development of artificial intelligence.

That will delight officials of the European Union, who have struggled to impose constraints on a technology only partially understood by its developers. Among those invited to take part in the presentation of Magnifica Humanitas in the Vatican was Chris Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, the maker of the Claude and Mythos ai models. He introduced a chilling note by observing that he and other researchers were encountering aspects of the models they developed that were “mysterious and even unsettling”.
Yet the encyclical is more than a demand for effective regulation or, in Leo’s phrase, the “disarming” of ai. At its philosophical core, it is a rebuttal of two views of humanity’s destiny that are popular in Silicon Valley and the tech community: transhumanism and posthumanism. Leo describes the first as envisaging “the enhancement of human beings through technologies”, such as body engineering, devices and algorithms, and the second as the “hybridisation of human beings, machines and the environment”. In its extreme forms, posthumanism looks forward to a point at which “humanity surpasses itself in a new evolutionary stage”. Though Leo does not use the term, this is often referred to by techies as the Singularity.

What unites trans- and posthumanism, Leo says, is an enthusiasm for “a supposed optimisation of the species”. That was also the aim of 20th-century eugenics, popular with Nazis and Fascists. Magnifica Humanitas argues that trans- and posthumanism carry similar risks: “If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy. In the name of progress, ‘necessary sacrifices’ may begin to be justified.”

Imperfections are integral to humanity, Leo argues, which “flourishes not despite its limitations, but often through them”. Here the pope is at his most fervent: “we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure,” he writes. “It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us.” The nub is that “humanity—in all its grandeur and woundedness—must never be replaced or surpassed.”

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McElroy, who is known for his heterodoxy on homosexuality and other issues, claimed that Monsignor Stephen Rossetti’s comments about demons and aliens ‘gravely undermine’ Catholic teaching.

Cardinal Robert McElroy removed Monsignor Stephen Rossetti as an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington after the renowned priest said that he believes demons can disguise themselves as aliens or UFOs.


A press release from the archdiocese adds that McElroy, who is well-known for his heterodoxy on homosexuality and other issues, has “ended all affiliation” between the archdiocese and Rossetti’s Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal (SMC) in Washington, D.C.


“Cardinal McElroy said that statements made by Monsignor Rossetti linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center’s recent use of social media gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism,” according to the press release.

One of TV’s longest-running children's shows is facing backlash for once again linking its puppets to homosexuality on social media.

Sesame Street shared a post on social media Tuesday, which read: “Happy Pride Month from Sesame Street! Join us in celebrating and uplifting the [gay and lesbian] members of our community.”

The post also included an image featuring different rainbow-colored furs resembling puppet characters from Sesame Street, such as Elmo, Cookie Monster and others.

Primarily geared toward toddlers, the PBS series — which was acquired last year by Netflix — drew the ire of pastors and other Evangelical groups on social media, including Turning Point USA, which criticized Sesame Street for its pro-LGBT messaging.

“This is literally a show meant for children,” TPUSA wrote on X.

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While a growing share of adults have been focusing on diet and exercise to achieve better health, a new report from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University shows that religious involvement, particularly among black Americans, is associated with longer life and a host of positive health outcomes.

The report, titled “The Religion and Physical Health Connection: What Does the Best Science Reveal?,” is the second installment in the institute's three-part "Religion and Human Flourishing" series.

It reviewed 1,000 high-quality studies highlighted in the 2024 "Handbook of Religion and Health." The review found that an overwhelming majority — 876 studies — reported a beneficial relationship between religion and health. Only 124 studies reported adverse associations.

Frequent religious attendance was associated with greater longevity in 83% of the studies, showing an approximately 34% reduction in mortality risk. One study of more than 20,000 adults found that those who attended religious services frequently lived an average of 7.6 years longer than those who did not. The disparity nearly doubled to 13.7 years among black Americans.

“These are not fringe findings from a handful of studies — they reflect a consistent pattern across hundreds of the most rigorous investigations in the field,” said Loren D. Marks, a professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University and the lead author of the report, in a statement shared with The Christian Post.

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This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

Exactly how did birds evolve from dinosaurs? It’s a mystery that has been with us for more than 150 years, and palaeontologists are still hunting for pieces of the puzzle today.

Among them is the University of Edinburgh’s Professor Steve Brusatte, whose latest book, The Story of Birds, tells the whole fascinating story. We caught up with him recently to find out more.

Of all the great dinosaur subjects, why this story?​

I’ve always been fascinated by birds. They are all around us and there’s such a stunning diversity and variety. As a palaeontologist I specialised early in the theropod (two-legged) dinosaurs. This is the group that includes T.rex and Velociraptor – and gave rise to birds.

The more I studied theropods, the more I became more curious about the modern-day animals that descended from them. Back in the early 2010s my PhD was about the origin of birds. Its core involved building a big new family tree of theropod dinosaurs to understand where birds slot in, how they evolved from dinosaurs, and how their body features came together.

I wrote about the dinosaur bird connection in my first book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (2018), but that was just one chapter. It made me think it would be really fun to do an entire book on the subject. That was how my new book, The Story of Birds, came together.

Is there still any debate about birds evolving from dinosaurs?​

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‘There was absolutely nothing else that I could do but watch the monitors and pray to God that his will once again may be done.’

In early 2025, Keishera and Greg Joubert were overjoyed to learn they were expecting a second son. But at 19 weeks, a devastating diagnosis shattered their excitement: Cassian had Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome (CHAOS), a rare, usually fatal condition where a thick membrane blocks the airway.

Refusing to give up, the Catholic couple found hope in Dr. Emanuel Vlastos at Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital in Florida. When a standard prenatal surgery failed to cut through the membrane, Dr. Vlastos proposed a radical, groundbreaking alternative. At 25 weeks, doctors partially delivered Cassian via C-section — bringing only his head and arms out of the womb. Still sustained by the placenta, specialists performed a delicate tracheostomy to create an airway before returning him to safety inside his mother.

Six weeks later, Keishera’s water broke. A massive team of 30 medical professionals mobilized for a final surgery to secure Cassian's breathing outside the womb.

He was, quite literally, born twice.

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